I was under the impression that the ValuJet/Air Tran crash of Flight # 592 was NOT the fault of AirTran, but rather the result of AirTran's sub-contractor's/client's lying to them that the cargo met FAA air safety standards, when the O2 containers clearly did not.

As I understand it the subcontractor/client filed for bankruptcy and is no longer in business. IT is the management of that company that should be held criminally liable. Perhaps AirTran was negligent in relying upon the representations made to them, I don't know, but I was under the impression that it was not their employees/management that were culpable for that crash.

Am I wrong?

No you are right but the blame was laid on ValuJet management because it is essentially their repsonsibility.

Again pointing to AA 191 the media more or less blamed Douglas, even though it was American's fault. As is the usual after a crash the blame is not always laid where it should be. And Douglas couldn't get the real story out because if it did they would piss of AA and never sell them another plane.

That I agree with as it is the cornerstone for the CIVIL liability of AirTran on the basis of respondeat superior. But some have contended that this is the basis for AirTran's criminal liability which is just plain wrong. That lies squarely at the feet of the subcontractor/client -- and the management of that company ought to be charged with negligent homicide, at the very least.

If large airlines like AA and UA are having the same rate of fatal accident, there'll be 4 fatal accidents annually for each of these airlines. Even on any bad year, it didn't happen that frequently.

You are right that flying on any airline is safer than driving. However, when compared to their biggie brothers, AirTran really needs to get their act together.

Who cares!?!?!?! I mean really, WHO CARES???? Does it really matter. Has Airtran had a fatal incident during their tenure? Has Airtran had a fatal incident since they returned to the skies after the last fiasco? NO. In fact, they may have one of the better safety records, and are moving towards having one of the youngest fleets.

Some people will never let the past lie - but if you want to cast stones, cast them at US Airways, United, American, Northwest, Continental, Delta and the likes.... They've all had many more fatal incidents in shorter periods of time then Airtran has even been around. Airtran is a fine airline that is putting the crunch on Delta in many markets and people in Atlanta should be happy they are around, whether they fly them or not. They've brought the fares, that everyone there was so fond of complaining about, down to tolerable, affordable levels. You are every bit as sensationalistic as the press.

Airtran flies singificantly fewer flights than do the Major airlines. That's why accident rates are expressed in accidents per 100,000 departures, miles, or hours. The largest airlines fly as many departures in a day as a small airline might fly in several months so they have significantly more exposure to having an accident.

The problem with valujet/airtran is not just their accident and incident rates, which are many times that of the rest of the industry, but it's what is causing these accidents and incidents. Especially enlightening is reading the reports of the many incidents (less serious than accidents) and some of the very poor decisions that have been made by valujet/airtran crews and managers.

Go to http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp#query_start and search from 1/1/94 through the present for model "DC-9". 11 out of 63 of the DC9 incidents and accidents during that period were valujet/airtran. American Airlines, who flies a much larger fleet of DC9s (roughly 260 DC9-80s during that preiod) has only only 5 incidents/accidents. AAL flew probably 8 or 10 times as many flights in their DC9 fleet during that time period yet had less than half of the accidents/incidents.

Read through some of the reports.

Isn't everyone forgetting thar Airtran is quickly coverting their fleet to 717s, which appear to be excellent, safe airplanes. This makes the prior data less relevant. After all, you are flying future flights, not past flights. Does anyone know if and when the entire fleet will be 717s?

AirTran Airways - The Truth about Safety

A B717 is a newer version of the DC9. The DC9 is an excellent, safe airplane. Other airlines operate large fleets of DC9s, many as old as the ones valujet/airtran flies, with accident/incident rates significantly lower than valujet/airtran's.

I just had to laugh when I read this thread. Some people are still living in 1996, apparently.

As far as the now long ago Valujet crash, read the facts, then come back & post: http://www.avweb.com/articles/vj592clo.html .This is the NTSB report, not some 3rd party propaganda.

As far as the plane situation, the CEO states:
Joe Leonard: With the addition of 2 airplanes a month between now and the end of the year and 20 new airplane deliveries next year, we will be an all 717 operator by December 2003. At that time, our entire DC-9 fleet will have been retired.


[This message has been edited by travelcoupons (edited 09-13-2002).]

I just have to laugh when someone complains about people "living in 1996," then talks about a 1996 crash, complains about "third party site propoganda" and then links to a NTSB report on a site other than ntsb.gov.

Beliving their CEO is funny enough (they've backed off that statement, by the way), but I'm not sure why you would be comforted by new 717s as resolving the "plane situation." In caes you're not aware, the 717s burn just as well as the DC9s.

In May of 2000 alone, Airtran had two emergency landings of 717s. One was a fire with smoke in the cockpit (2002/05/07) and one was a total electrical failure (2002/05/26).

Hopefully the last couple years isn't too "in the past" for you. After all, if they haven't crashed so far today, they're good. Right?

http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/1997/AAR9706.pdf is the pdf document that dbaker wants, if anyone can get it to load.

read it if you care...now back to mileage earning talk, which is what this forum is about.

The statement of Probable Cause is listed on page 137 of the document which is page 151 in acrobat.

For the record:
There were once 2 separate airlines: ValuJet and AirTran.
Then ValuJet crashed in the Everglades due to illegal O2 canisters.
So ValuJet arranged a merger with AirTran & the combined airline uses the AirTran name even though ValuJet was larger & dominant in the merger. One could say that ValuJet bought the AirTran name. But it wasn't a change to a newly coined name.

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Play the travel game 3 vacations into the future!

dbaker: first I want to ask why would a person who tries to host a large frequent flying website display more bias on it than CNN? Also, I will acknowledge that Valujet was not the safest airline, but that saying that today's AirTran is exactly the same is just plain wrong

Next, you seem to be confused over what happened with 592. It wasn't Valujet's fault, it was the maintenance company SabreTech in MIA. Now, you say that VJet is to blame for picking the maintenance company, but on the day of the crash, DL and AA were also using SabreTech for maintenance. The crash was caused when SabreTech mechanics loaded a mislabeled oxygen canister as empty to get it out b/c CO was going to look around, thinking about giving ST a contract.

You mentioned on your site that "A large portion of AirTran's fleet are DC-9 aircraft from third-world countries(Turkey, etc.)." I believe that the largest portion came from DL. Less than a handful in AirTran's fleet came from third-world countries, with Turkey being the 'worst' of them. More planes in VJet's fleet did, but many of those weren't picked up by AirTran after the merger.

You talk about the four separate fires in 2000. One of them was flight 956, which, believe it or not, was due to a passenger's curling iron that accidentally came on. The aircraft was going to have the fire suppresion system added in about two weeks, and would have been one of the last ones in the fleet to get it. I would like to see how this incident is AirTran's fault. Of the two 717 accidents, one was from some water from the ice bucket that seeped into the cockpit(the problem with that has been fixed), and the other was a switch that shorted and SMALL wisps of smoke appeared in the cockpit, which still requires an emergency landing. The only one that is for the bad wiring is ATL-GSO, which prompted the execs to order that all DC9 wiring be gone over and anything wrong that is found be replaced. There haven't been any new emergency landings in at least 18 months due to anything but 9/11 or a weather diversion.

The 5.88 statistic is also misleading. My guess is that it hasn't been updated in at least 3 years. AirTran will have an average of 370 daily flights this year, or a yearly total of 130,000. To say that there has only been 170,000 flights operated by AirTran/Valujet since its inception is pure BS. The ratio should have lowered by a large number. And remember the three types of lies. According to the source ofthis statistic, who is the US's number 2 unsafe airline? Midwest Express. And I think we all know that they are a very safe airline.